US Patent Issued to Apple on Dec. 9 for "Four-transistor pixel with charge sharing" (Israeli Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Dec. 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,495,227, issued on Dec. 9, was assigned to Apple Inc. (Cupertino, Calif.).

"Four-transistor pixel with charge sharing" was invented by Vladimir Koifman (Rishon Lezion, Israel).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An image sensor includes a pixel-circuit and circuitry. The pixel-circuit includes a PD that accumulates charge responsively to incident light and a FD that stores the charge. The circuitry serially (i) connects the PD and a supply rail to the FD and sends a first FD voltage, (ii) disconnects the supply rail from the FD and sends a second FD voltage, (iii) disconnects the PD from the FD and sends a third FD voltage, (iv) waits a preset ...